He maintained the entire equality of the race, the
inherent right of self-ownership, the equal claim of all to a fair
participation in the enactment of the laws by which they are governed.
He saw clearly that slavery, as it existed in the South and on his own
plantation, was inconsistent with this doctrine. His early efforts for
emancipation in Virginia failed of success; but he next turned his
attention to the vast northwestern territory, and laid the foundation of
that ordinance of 1787, which, like the flaming sword of the angel at the
gates of Paradise, has effectually guarded that territory against the
entrance of slavery. Nor did he stop here. He was the friend and
admirer of the ultra-abolitionists of revolutionary France; he warmly
urged his British friend, Dr. Price, to send his anti-slavery pamphlets
into Virginia; he omitted no opportunity to protest against slavery as
anti-democratic, unjust, and dangerous to the common welfare; and in his
letter to the territorial governor of Illinois, written in old age, he
bequeathed, in earnest and affecting language, the cause of negro
emancipation to the rising generation.
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